


The Name of the Game

by rosewiththorns



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Crushes, Cuddling, Detroit Red Wings, Games, Gen, Kissing, Love, M/M, Secret love, Secrets, Truth, dares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 02:05:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6933631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewiththorns/pseuds/rosewiththorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dylan has a secret, Petr has a truth, and AA has both. Written per reader request.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Name of the Game

**Author's Note:**

> This story, even though it is not particularly long, took me awhile to write, because I had trouble deciding what point of view to use. In the end, I chose to tell the story from three different perspectives, giving each of the main characters section from their point of view. The opening section is Dylan's, the middle AA's, and the last one is Petr's. I hope readers enjoy the story and aren't confused by the narration at any point!

“You make me show  
what I'm trying to conceal.  
If I trust in you,   
would you let me down?  
Would you laugh at me,   
if I said I care for you?  
Could you feel the same way too?  
I wanna know  
the name of the game.”—Abba

The Name of the Game

I: The Jack of Hearts

Petr was asleep in the seat just across the aisle on the plane now cutting through the sky over nameless farming communities in the heart of flyover America, and Dylan had made the mistake of glancing at him instead of keeping his focus on the fan of cards that were his weapons in his game of B.S. with AA. Looking at Petr was always a distraction to Dylan, so he tried to limit the number and length of his glances to covert, brief pleasures, but, in a high-altitude induced haze, Dylan was too weak to resist the temptation of keeping his eyes on Petr, who was so tantalizingly innocent and vulnerable as he slept with a gentle curve to his lips that suggested his dreams were sweet…Oh, how Dylan longed to brush his mouth across those lips, but that was even more forbidden than admiring gazes.

“Did your one remaining brain cell die?” AA nudged him over the armrest dividing their seats. “It’s your turn.” 

“Right.” Dylan didn’t even look down at his cards as he yanked three from his fan at random and slammed the trio down on the fold-up tray AA had pulled down from the back of the seat in front, where Darren seemed to be binge-watching episodes of some crime show on his laptop, casting a blue hue across his pale skin. “Three sevens.” 

“B.S.,” said AA, rolling his eyes and shoving the pile of accumulated cards at Dylan. “Next time you want to lie, don’t put down three sevens when I just put that down the turn before you. You were supposed to put down eights, you know.” 

“I got distracted,” Dylan muttered, flushing to the roots of his dark hair as he shuffled his new cards into his fan, which was now so big that it was on the verge of falling from his hand. 

“Is that what you call it when you can’t take your eyes off Petr?” snickered AA. 

“I could take my eyes off Petr.” His face burning, Dylan stared down at a jack of hearts in his deck that only increased his aggravation by gazing up at him with a coy smile and pink, dimpled cheeks. 

“B.S.,” repeated AA, and this time Dylan knew he wasn’t talking about a hand of cards Dylan had just played. “Nothing wrong with admitting you’ve got the hots for him.”

“Yeah, there is.” Even just talking about being attracted to Petr was making Dylan hard, and the friction of his dick pressing against his jeans only heightened his arousal, but that brought him agony, not ecstasy. If he didn’t get himself under control soon, he would be taking a walk of shame to the bathroom with a tent in his pants so he could jerk off on the toilet, biting his lip until it bled to keep from calling out Petr’s name. He’d already done that too many times this season. “He can’t know that I like him, because if he doesn’t share my feelings—and he won’t—the whole team dynamic will be fucked up.” 

“You can’t assume that he won’t feel the same way,” AA argued. “He might have the exact same feelings as you, right down to not having the balls to tell you how much he pines after you, but you’ll never know if you can’t find the stones to share your secret love with him.” 

“He’ll never know how I feel.” Dylan furrowed his forehead, straining to send a brain wave to AA that would let the other rookie know that he was serious as a heart attack. “I won’t tell him, and you won’t tell him. Got it, or do I need to draw you a picture?” 

“Nobody can understand your pictures anyway.” AA’s tone was too flippant to be reassuring. “Don’t worry, though. I won’t tell him. You can keep your love wrapped up in your heart until it goes stale for all I care.” 

“Promise?” Dylan clutched AA’s wrist, desperate to wring a more sincere vow from his friend. 

“Would this face lie to you?” AA assumed a wounded expression. “Of course I won’t tell. Want me to cross my heart and hope to die if I break my word?” 

“No.” Nettled, Dylan glowered at AA. “If you tell Petr about my feelings for him, you won’t have to hope to die, because I will kill you and painfully. Probably by drawing and quartering unless I can invent something more horrible.” 

Despite Dylan’s threat, AA only laughed while the jack of hearts offered his coy smile and Petr broke into soft snores across the aisle.

II: Wild Card

AA waited until he had sidled up behind Petr, who was busy making sure that the straps on his goalie mask were adjusted just right (because goaltenders were finicky about that sort of rubbish) before he stowed it on the shelf of his stall, before he hissed in Petr’s ear, “I did it.” 

“Did what?” Petr started, but did not jump in the air, disappointing AA, who had hoped for a more pronounced display of shock. 

“Put salt instead of sugar in Blash’s coffee.” AA elbowed Petr in the ribs, miffed that Petr had forgotten the dare he had given AA in their ongoing game of truth-or-dare. “I did my dare. Now it’s your turn. Truth or dare?” 

“Truth,” answered Petr, as he always did, because he hadn’t learned that truths were more dangerous than dares, since they required honesty, while dares demanded nothing more than sheer recklessness. The consequences of a dare could seldom slice as deep as the consequences of a truth. Better to keep your truths secret and get adrenaline highs from your dares, since nothing could hurt you like the truth being told. Just ask Dylan, who had been so desperate last night to keep his obvious infatuation for Petr a state secret…

The thought of Dylan’s secret or not so secret love prompted AA to ask, “Who’s your biggest crush on the team?” 

“Who says I have a crush on this team?” Petr folded his arms across his chest. 

“Your eyes do.” AA chuckled, remembering his mom’s advice to always look into people’s eyes because the eyes could never lie, even if the lips did. Petr’s eyes always drifted over to Dylan when they changed in the locker room, and he never even thought to look around to check if anyone else was watching him admire Dylan’s nakedness. Love made Petr blind when he only had eyes for Dylan and forgot that there was an entire team in the room with him. “They are always staring at Dylan when he changes, which would probably creep him out, to be honest, if he wasn’t too busy keeping his eyes down to avoid looking at you when he changes.”

“Why would he want to avoid looking at me?” Nonplussed and too slow on the uptake for AA’s taste, Petr frowned. 

“Because you’re uglier than a baboon’s backside.” AA snorted. “That doesn’t stop him from being head over heels in love with you, though. Aren’t you lucky?” 

“Fuck off,” huffed Petr, his words tumbling together in his temper. “You have your truth.” 

“Technically I don’t.” AA took an intense interest in his fingernails, as he decided that it would be fun to play the matchmaker. “I had to guess it myself, so you still owe a truth in our little game. Only you won’t give your truth to me. You’ll give it to Dylan. You’ll tell him how you really feel about him. I saw him in the weight room, so fly away and sing your sweet song to him, little lovebird.” 

“This is more a dare than a truth,” protested Petr. 

“All truths are dares.” AA waved a hand in dismissal. “Off you go.” 

“Next time you pick dare, I’ll make you dance around the locker room naked,” muttered Petr, and, on a tide of threats, he left the locker room, while AA thought it was a shame that he should be so reviled for forcing two idiots to finally be honest with their feelings so they could finally get to a more exciting and less awkward phase in their relationship than just staring at one another when they thought the other wasn’t looking. He at least deserved to be bought a beer for hooking up Petr and Dylan, but maybe that would only come later if he got to be a best man at their wedding or something…

III: Black Aces

As AA had said he would, Petr found Dylan in the wait room, hunched on a bench as he took a break from his workout and lapping loudly at a bottle of Glacier Freeze Gatorade to rehydrate himself. Petr felt thirsty himself seeing how hot Dylan looked when he was all sweaty and flushed. 

“Dylan.” Not knowing where to begin, Petr took a seat on the bench beside Dylan and decided to spill out his guts in the most humiliating and tactless way possible, because if he was going to be a fool, he might as well crown himself the village idiot while was at it. “I want to tell you how I really feel about you.” 

“And how’s that?” Dylan squirted Gatorade down his front as he tried to drink and talk at the same time. 

“I love you.” Petr took the plunge, bracing himself for any of a thousand negative reactions from Dylan. “When we’re in the locker room, I can’t take my eyes off you. I live for those stolen glances at you.” 

Dylan’s eyes narrowed, but when he spoke, it was one thing Petr hadn’t expected him to say. “AA put you up to this, didn’t he?” 

“Yes,” sputtered Petr. 

“Then he’s a bastard for not keeping his word to me, and you’re a real son of a bitch for agreeing to play such a nasty prank on me,” Dylan snapped, throwing his Gatorade in the trash with so much fervor that it smashed on impact and spattered the rest of the contents with blue stains. 

“What are you talking about?” choked out Petr, feeling as if he had all the edge pieces to a puzzle and no middle pieces to attach to make sense of the whole picture. 

“Don’t act innocent when you’ve already admitted that you were guilty.” Dylan’s fists clenched as if he were fighting the urge to punch Petr square in the jaw. “I was dumb enough to tell AA on the plane last night that I had a crush on you, and maybe I did last night, but it doesn’t matter anymore because you proved what a fucking jerk you are by mocking me like this.” 

“Relax.” Ignoring Dylan’s indignant squawks, Petr pulled Dylan to his chest in a one-armed embrace, feeling his own temperature flare as he felt the heat of Dylan’s sweaty body pressed against his with only clothes separating skin from skin, and his own heart begin to pound in unison with Dylan’s. “AA only guessed the truth that I love you and made me tell it to you. It’s the truth, not a prank.” 

“You’d say the same if it were a lie.” Dylan’s whole body shivered in harmony with his quivering lower lip. “How will I know it’s true that you love me?” 

“Same way I do.” On pure instinct, Petr brushed his mouth across Dylan’s, loving the softness of the tender skin mingled with the stickiness of the Gatorade, because the stickiness made the kiss too natural to be a mere fantasy of Petr’s. This was real, and sweeter than Petr had imagined, thanks to the sticky residue of Gatorade on lips. “You’ll taste the truth in each kiss.”


End file.
